The Gift in action
by IBG
Summary: Companion piece of sorts to 'A Father's Gift'. Happy belated Father's day. Some fathers are later than others...


None of the charcters here are mine.

Happy belated Father's day.

THE GIFT (IN ACTION)

The Death Star is following the tracking device we placed on the smuggler's vessel towards the Rebel Base.

I excused myself to my meditation chamber as soon as we entered hyperspace. I await the next salvo of renewed civil war alone.

There are several reasons I seek solitude. I must rest and prepare for the coming battle. I am unwilling to spend more time than necessary in Tarkin's company. And I feel... unwell.

The chamber's automated medical scanners run as I attempt restorative meditations. They find nothing. Mentally I catalogue the events of my last five waking cycles in an attempt to identify the timing (and thence cause) of my difficulty. I was as healthy as I ever am when we captured the Princess…

The Princess, who represents so much of what was wrong in the Republic she foolishly desires restored. Raised to a life of aristocratic privilege, she now presumes to impose existence from her sheltered point of view on a Galaxy widely unable to appreciate or sustain a functional democracy.

I observed her in the Senate. I supported her efforts to rein in the rampant corruption.

She means well. She is severely misguided by the teachings of the subversive who raised her. Of course, our unspoken alliance met limited success. It took years but I realized some time ago that my Master is intent on maintaining the rotten beaurocracy as part of his own power base.

I respect the Princess, and I admire her spirit and her principles, but those truths will never be made known to her by me, beacuse I hate Leia Organa.

Her background and career path are too similar to another Senator who preceded her by two decades, and paid the ultimate price. Even a physical resemblance exists between them. Those features are not overly common, but I refuse to speculate on her ill-fated origins.

Bail Organa named her in tacit honor of that long-dead Senator and her child. The intimacy connoted by his possession of such personal information disturbs me still. As the Princess lives she reminds me of _their_ death. Anger, guilt and shame come. After so many years' rumination I can no longer harness passionate darkness with this line of thought, only a deep regret that tastes too pure to entertain.

Human slavery and torture were widely tolerated in the Republic. Interrogation introduced her to the realities of debased human existence she wants restored. She suffered greatly through the drugs and bonds. Yet I could not gain ironic pleasure absorbing the force-ripples from her suffering. Instead I was beset throughout the process by visceral discomfort, nausea and a mild headache. The symptoms were mysteriously difficult to ignore given my vast experience with the circumstances.

I attempted to probe her with the force. I crashed into mental barriers so strong they deflected even some emotional and physical pain. All efforts to break her concentration were futile. Her shielding was a subconscious constant.

I am perplexed. Upon our initial meeting I sensed her as only mildly force sensitive. Too weak to train as a Jedi or Sith. Too weak to have the shields she possesses. I can recall others with similar sensitivity and abilities, but none of them withstood such a test….

My physical disquiet is a force-reaction that began during the Princess' interrogation. The symptoms are still with me.

Muted premonitions and force-echoes of Alderaan's destruction, I decide.

I cannot condone what happened. There is no pleasure of power I can draw from the death of billions of beings for the sentiments of a few hundred of the planet's inhabitants.

Tarkin disagrees, but I firmly believe the Empire has shot itself in the (literal and proverbial) boots.

Aldraan was a wealthy core world that welcomed many refugees from other conflicts. Even if they were supporting the rebellion destroying them thus was a waste of resources. As a plus we killed Bail Organa and destroyed a fraction of their funding and equipment. Simultaneously we gave powerful fuel to the insurgents' propaganda machine. Rulers will be more cautious in their actions, but the rebellion's ranks will swell. They are shorter on manpower than on money or leaders. We have given them exactly what they needed...

Vader's thoughts move on. He contemplates Obi-Wan's cryptic advice at the end of their duel, and what the old man's actions might mean. Regardless, Kenobi and Organa are dead. He glories in his victory over them, and thereby attains the feeling of dark triumph he seeks. He settles into meditation. He is unaware that his vicious force-driven attacks on Leia Organa have stirred someone from long sleep. Deeply buried in Vader's subconscious Anakin Skywalker smiles, satisfied as his alter-ego accepts the subtle misdirections he gives in the force. The life-gift he gave his Leia works as well as he always hoped it would.


End file.
